Don’t escalate Ukraine war, United States intelligence veterans say

This documentary is about the media itself, viewed as a weapon system: Weapons of Mass Deception. Those weapons drove a media war, a war that many now believe perverted freedom of the press in order to manipulate public support for a real war.

Rather than challenging official assertions, most media outlets, used patriotism as a promotional tool, pandered to unjustified fears and nationalist sentiment, extolled the brilliance of military technology, and uncritically trumpeted the Bush administration’s “product.”

In an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, veteran US intelligence professionals urge her not to be swayed by dodgy evidence into backing conflict with Russia

We are long-time veterans of US intelligence.

We take the unusual step of writing this open letter to you to ensure that you have an opportunity to be briefed on our views prior to the Nato summit on September 4-5.

You need to know, for example, that accusations of a major Russian “invasion” of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the “intelligence” seems to be of the same dubious, politically “fixed” kind used 12 years ago to “justify” the US-led attack on Iraq.

Twelve years ago, former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, mindful of the flimsiness of the evidence on Iraqi WMD, refused to join in the attack on Iraq.

In our view, you should be appropriately suspicious of charges made by the US State Department and Nato officials alleging a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

President Barack Obama tried earlier this week to cool the rhetoric of his own senior diplomats and the corporate media, when he publicly described recent activity in the Ukraine, as “a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now … it’s not really a shift.”

Largely because of the growing prominence of, and apparent reliance on, intelligence we believe to be spurious, we think the possibility of hostilities escalating beyond the borders of Ukraine has increased significantly over the past several days.

More important, we believe that this likelihood can be avoided, depending on the degree of judicious skepticism you and other European leaders bring to the Nato summit.

Hopefully, your advisers have reminded you of Nato secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s chequered record for credibility. It appears to us that Rasmussen’s speeches continue to be drafted by Washington.

This was abundantly clear on the day before the US-led invasion of Iraq when, as Danish prime minister, he told his Parliament: “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. This is not something we just believe. We know.”

Photos can be worth a thousand words — they can also deceive. We have considerable experience collecting, analysing and reporting on all kinds of satellite and other imagery, as well as other kinds of intelligence.

Suffice it to say that the images released by Nato on August 28 provide a very flimsy basis on which to charge Russia with invading Ukraine.

That same day, we warned President Bush that our former colleague analysts were “increasingly distressed at the politicisation of intelligence” and told him flatly: “Powell’s presentation does not come close” to justifying war.

We urged Bush to “widen the discussion … beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

Although President Vladimir Putin has until now shown considerable reserve on the conflict in the Ukraine, it behooves us to remember that Russia, too, can “shock and awe.”

In our view, if there is the slightest chance of that kind of thing eventually happening to Europe because of Ukraine, sober-minded leaders need to think this through very carefully.

If the photos that Nato and the US have released represent the best available “proof” of an invasion from Russia, our suspicions increase that a major effort is under way to fortify arguments for the Nato summit to approve actions that Russia is sure to regard as provocative.

Caveat emptor is an expression with which you are no doubt familiar. Suffice it to add that one should be very cautious regarding what Rasmussen, or even Secretary of State John Kerry, are peddling.

According to a February 1 2008 cable (published by WikiLeaks) from the US embassy in Moscow to secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, US ambassador William Burns was called in by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who explained Russia’s strong opposition to Nato membership for Ukraine.

Lavrov warned pointedly of “fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.”

Burns gave his cable the unusual title “Nyet Means Nyet: Russia’s Nato Enlargement Red Lines,” and sent it off to Washington with immediate precedence. Two months later, at their summit in Bucharest, Nato leaders issued a formal declaration that “Georgia and Ukraine will be in Nato.”

Just last week, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk used his Facebook page to claim that, with the approval of parliament that he has requested, the path to Nato membership is open.

Yatsenyuk, of course, was Washington’s favourite pick to become prime minister after the February 22 coup d’etat in Kiev.

The conventional wisdom promoted by Kiev just a few weeks ago was that Ukrainian forces had the upper hand in fighting the anti-coup federalists in south-eastern Ukraine, in what was largely portrayed as a mop-up operation.

But that picture of the offensive originated almost solely from official government sources in Kiev.

There were very few reports coming from the ground in south-eastern Ukraine.

There was one, however, quoting Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, that raised doubt about the reliability of the government’s portrayal.

According to the “press service of the President of Ukraine” on August 18, Poroshenko called for a “regrouping of Ukrainian military units involved in the operation of power in the east of the country,” adding, “we need to consider a new military operation in the new circumstances.”

At about this time, sources on the ground began to report a string of successful attacks by the anti-coup federalists against government forces.

According to these sources, it was the government army that was starting to take heavy casualties and lose ground, largely because of ineptitude and poor leadership.

Ten days later, as they became encircled and/or retreated, a ready-made excuse for this was to be found in the “Russian invasion.”

The anti-coup federalists in southeastern Ukraine enjoy considerable local support, partly as a result of government artillery strikes on major population centres.

And we believe that Russian support probably has been pouring across the border and includes, significantly, excellent battlefield intelligence.

But it is far from clear that this support includes tanks and artillery at this point — mostly because the federalists have been better led and surprisingly successful in pinning down government forces.

At the same time, we have little doubt that, if and when the federalists need them, the Russian tanks will come. This is precisely why the situation demands a concerted effort for a ceasefire, which you know Kiev has so far been delaying.

What is to be done at this point?

In our view, Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk need to be told flat-out that membership of Nato is not on the cards — and that Nato has no intention of waging a proxy war with Russia — and especially not in support of the rag-tag army of Ukraine.

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — The office of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Wednesday that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin are in agreement on a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, but the statement was ambiguous and a top rebel figure said no cease-fire was possible without Ukraine withdrawing its forces: here.

UKRAINE RETRACTS ‘CEASE-FIRE’ LANGUAGE “The office of President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine said Wednesday that he and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had a similar understanding about what was needed to achieve a cease-fire in southeastern Ukraine, but it retracted a statement it had made earlier in the day that said the two men had agreed to a ‘lasting cease-fire.’ The initial statement, posted on the presidential website, went too far in describing the results of a telephone call between the two leaders as having reached a cease-fire, said a spokesman, noting that a revised version would be posted shortly.” The news, which comes just as President Obama is landing in the Baltics, is doing wonders for the markets despite an undercurrent of uncertainty. [NYT]